Edward Minoff - Artist Feature

“My hope is that you will feel the warmth of light, hear the crash of the waves and smell the salty sea air as the painting fills your view.”

Edward Minoff creates artwork with the goal to incorporate all the viewers’ senses. Minoff’s professional career began with an animation company and then led to his professional studio work.  His current work is done beginning with a notebook he carries around, which he takes notes and pencil drawings.  He strays from photography since he feels that it only captures one instance while his goal is to capture the entire scene. Minoff finds that through taking notes about the anatomy of the waves and the experience of the landscape, he is able to capture the experience and put them into his paintings. Sketches are done on a smaller scale so that he can make choices about color or style before he does the final monumental work.  Many steps go into his works of art in order to create the scenes that will encompass your senses.

Q&A with Edward Minoff

What part of your process do you find most influential?

Minoff: Every part plays a role. The most fun part is to spend time on the beach, going in the waves, and trying to understand them. It becomes more engaging as you try to understand it. If you are passionate about what you are painting that will come through.

How do you pick your locations?

Minoff: Primarily the place I grew up in on Long Island, I’ve been there every summer since I was 1 month old. My art is really less location specific and more about the universal qualities of water.

How long does one work take from the notes stage to the finished work of art?

Minoff: For one of the paintings in the upcoming exhibition, I first did the sketch in 2009 and now I have the final piece. Often it is a long meditative process. Being able to walk away from it and come back is very helpful in the process

When you teach at Columbia what is the most important lesson that you hope your students learn?

Minoff: I teach a craft oriented class, which can be a counterbalance to the other classes that are taught there. The thing that I hope they walk away with is a deep love of being able to describe something beautifully.  To find the visual poetry around them.

How did the Hudson River Fellowship come about?

Minoff: I started it with a few other painters. We were all doing a lot of landscape painting in a variety of locations. There wasn’t any center for people to use plein air painting. We created the fellowship to become a center for a base for the movement. We have gathered a place for these artists to flourish in this particular style – using field sketches back in the studio to construct more fully realized works.

What is the greatest influence on your work?

Minoff: I don’t think there is one thing. There are all sorts of things. They vary from music, books, sports, other paintings, and the landscape itself.

What would be the most important thing you would want people seeing your work to know about you?

Minoff: A lot of the paintings that you see, paintings of the ocean, are used from photographs. I would want people to know my motivation not to use photography is to create an aesthetic that focuses on how the eyes interpret things rather than a camera. A human perspective. My goal is to present paintings how I see or imagine things and incorporate the perpetual motion of the scene.

To learn more about Edward Minoff visit the Cavalier Galleries from May 10, 2013 until May 30, 2013 for a special exhibition of his work.

Cavalier Galleries, Inc.

405 Greenwich Ave, Greenwich, CT 06830

203-869-3664